Well, that made it about a month. So much for discipline and focus and actually following through and finishing something for once.
So, updates on my last updates . . .
In my last post, I talked about a theoretical reorganization at my office and how it would effect me. As an indication of how quickly things move at my job (and maybe in all industries; I don't know about any jobs other than this one) it finally came to fruition starting at the end of August. My part-time staff were laid off and more or less replaced with full-time staff from another department. Same job. Theoretically new position.
I could go on and on about my job. In fact, some might say I already have. However, on the off-chance that someone at my job stumbles across this fragment of data floating in the ether-net, I'm going to end it there. One can always come across those horror-stories of things being posted on a person's personal website that gets him or her fired from their job. I'd rather not risk it.
Here is the problem I am observing (again for the first time) with this not-a-blog specifically, and with the internet in general. People are aware of (and have been, since the internet's establishment) both the power and risk of the anonymity that online affords. People have also long been aware of the risk that comes with sharing personal information online (it's publicly accessible, etc). What I haven't seen discussed is the dilemma that results from power of each side. On the one hand, you cannot trust anyone online; every interaction via blog, chat room, comments section on any news article, or anything else is viewable to a large percentage of people who could use the information you provide maliciously. So it is better not to provide any information at all; any information you offer carries with it a potentially devastating risk. On the other hand, without providing information about yourself to the general public, then you yourself are deemed untrustworthy; otherwise you'd be perfectly willing to share about yourself. So in order to be viewed as a credible and trustworthy source, you cannot maintain 100% anonymity online. But in order to maintain personal security, you ought not reveal anything to anyone. It is a treacherous minefield, and I suspect that most people err on the side of revealing too much.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Planning II (Update)
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Planning II
There is the strong possibility that my department at work will be consolidated with another department at work over the next few days. That is to say, the consolidation will be announced in the next few days. For the consolidation to be complete will take at least two months.
My boss will take on the responsibility for the programming side of things effective immediately. The goal is for her to take on the operations side of the department by April 1. In order to do that effectively, we need to plan it out. That's where I come in.
By Monday, I need to figure out what the transition is going to look like, what we expect the end goal of the department to be and how we are going to get there.
Essentially, the department we are merging with has been operating as a separate organization within our organization. This has created a lot of inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are potentially making things more difficult for the people who work within the organization and are almost certainly costing us money.
So what would an efficient process look like? What is the ideal that we want to achieve?
The program gets by paid based on the number of certified hours that eligible, enrolled students attend. From the program side of things, our goal is to get as many students to attend as possible. From the operations side, we want to ensure that every hour that a student attends is an hour that we can be paid for.
In order for a student to count, the student must be:
A) Eligible
B) Enrolled
C) With our organization
D) With a start date prior to the date attendance is taken.
The student must:
E) Have a valid ID number
F) Sign in and out of a class
G) With a start time and end time
H) The class must be taught by a registered teacher
I) Whose ID number must be identified
The student must also have:
J) A student plan completed
K) Quarterly reports completed after 17.5 hours of program
L) Fewer than 75 hours previously completed.
Some of those pieces of information are registered in the system with each student enrollment. Some of them are reported to the city's Department of Education through a monthly upload. Others must be entered manually by our staff into the city's database.
In order for us to create the upload files, we must take the sign-in sheets required by the city and enter it into some database that will create the upload files for us based on the information we enter. As of two months ago, information was entered into a complex book of Excel files. So far as I know that has changed. I expect it to change again. The information for my department in the organization is all entered into a web-based database from which we purchase an annual site license. Ideally, that database would be able to create the reports needed for the upload.
Prior to the upload being submit, it must be "certified," where we sign off on the accuracy of the information we are submitting. If the information is missing any of the elements above, it will be rejected. Therefore it is imperative that we confirm the accuracy of all the information prior to certifying it, so that it is approved. To be honest, I'm not sure how we do that. I assume the current department has methods that are effective, but I won't know for certain until I go through the whole process once or twice.
Since the web-based database is not available yet, then we cannot count on it, and we will continue to use the current database, while still working to create the new database. In the meantime, we will need to enter information at the office. This will require that the attendance sheets be brought to the office. Currently, directors of our programs are required to come into the central office each Monday. I would ask them to bring in their attendance sheets at this time (this may already be part of the plan). For the programs who do not come in to the office, I would still want the hard-copy attendance on a weekly basis.
One person should be designated as the recipient of the attendance. This attendance coordinator will collect all the attendance sheets each week. He or she will confirm that all sheets from all activities are turned in on a weekly basis, that every sheet is correctly filled out, and if there are any missing or incorrect sheets, he or she will make sure that the errors and omissions are corrected.
There are 45 programs that run this particular kind of program. 15 also run programs under my boss' current purview. Rather than having two staff people entering information for the same school in two different places, one person will be assigned to enter all the information for five programs each. Three people will have that responsibility. For the other 30 programs, there will be four staff entering seven or eight programs each. I expect I will need three additional staff entering attendance for my current department as they currently do. That will be 10 people to enter attendance overall.
The department that we will be merging with has many high quality employees already. I don't want to lose the knowledge they have gained and don't want to lose their skill. I recommend one-on-one meetings with each of them, first so I can hear how the current process is structured, so I can see what obstacles they face, and so I can better determine what system will be most efficient. These meetings should take place in the first week of February.
I envision three other areas of need. In addition to entering the information, we need to upload the information on a monthly basis, we need to certify the information as explained above, and we need to produce management reports to report to the senior management and also to those in charge of the programs.
The management reports must be accurate, timely, and useful. They must provide information that will increase the quality of the program, but also must identify students who we are potentially missing hours for, whether because they are not coming, or because they are not officially enrolled. The production of and follow-up on these reports can be the domain of either one person, or can be an additional responsibility of the attendance coordinator. I am leaning toward the latter, since the attendance coordinator will already be speaking with the sites on an ongoing basis in an attempt to collect and correct all the attendance.
The certification and upload might both fall under the responsibility of another person. It appears that the upload is not just as simple as downloading a file and then attaching it to the DOE database. So one person might be responsible for running the upload, and another might be responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the data. Again, the accuracy of the data might be ensured by the attendance coordinator.
That's the plan.
My boss will take on the responsibility for the programming side of things effective immediately. The goal is for her to take on the operations side of the department by April 1. In order to do that effectively, we need to plan it out. That's where I come in.
By Monday, I need to figure out what the transition is going to look like, what we expect the end goal of the department to be and how we are going to get there.
Essentially, the department we are merging with has been operating as a separate organization within our organization. This has created a lot of inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are potentially making things more difficult for the people who work within the organization and are almost certainly costing us money.
So what would an efficient process look like? What is the ideal that we want to achieve?
The program gets by paid based on the number of certified hours that eligible, enrolled students attend. From the program side of things, our goal is to get as many students to attend as possible. From the operations side, we want to ensure that every hour that a student attends is an hour that we can be paid for.
In order for a student to count, the student must be:
A) Eligible
B) Enrolled
C) With our organization
D) With a start date prior to the date attendance is taken.
The student must:
E) Have a valid ID number
F) Sign in and out of a class
G) With a start time and end time
H) The class must be taught by a registered teacher
I) Whose ID number must be identified
The student must also have:
J) A student plan completed
K) Quarterly reports completed after 17.5 hours of program
L) Fewer than 75 hours previously completed.
Some of those pieces of information are registered in the system with each student enrollment. Some of them are reported to the city's Department of Education through a monthly upload. Others must be entered manually by our staff into the city's database.
In order for us to create the upload files, we must take the sign-in sheets required by the city and enter it into some database that will create the upload files for us based on the information we enter. As of two months ago, information was entered into a complex book of Excel files. So far as I know that has changed. I expect it to change again. The information for my department in the organization is all entered into a web-based database from which we purchase an annual site license. Ideally, that database would be able to create the reports needed for the upload.
Prior to the upload being submit, it must be "certified," where we sign off on the accuracy of the information we are submitting. If the information is missing any of the elements above, it will be rejected. Therefore it is imperative that we confirm the accuracy of all the information prior to certifying it, so that it is approved. To be honest, I'm not sure how we do that. I assume the current department has methods that are effective, but I won't know for certain until I go through the whole process once or twice.
Since the web-based database is not available yet, then we cannot count on it, and we will continue to use the current database, while still working to create the new database. In the meantime, we will need to enter information at the office. This will require that the attendance sheets be brought to the office. Currently, directors of our programs are required to come into the central office each Monday. I would ask them to bring in their attendance sheets at this time (this may already be part of the plan). For the programs who do not come in to the office, I would still want the hard-copy attendance on a weekly basis.
One person should be designated as the recipient of the attendance. This attendance coordinator will collect all the attendance sheets each week. He or she will confirm that all sheets from all activities are turned in on a weekly basis, that every sheet is correctly filled out, and if there are any missing or incorrect sheets, he or she will make sure that the errors and omissions are corrected.
There are 45 programs that run this particular kind of program. 15 also run programs under my boss' current purview. Rather than having two staff people entering information for the same school in two different places, one person will be assigned to enter all the information for five programs each. Three people will have that responsibility. For the other 30 programs, there will be four staff entering seven or eight programs each. I expect I will need three additional staff entering attendance for my current department as they currently do. That will be 10 people to enter attendance overall.
The department that we will be merging with has many high quality employees already. I don't want to lose the knowledge they have gained and don't want to lose their skill. I recommend one-on-one meetings with each of them, first so I can hear how the current process is structured, so I can see what obstacles they face, and so I can better determine what system will be most efficient. These meetings should take place in the first week of February.
I envision three other areas of need. In addition to entering the information, we need to upload the information on a monthly basis, we need to certify the information as explained above, and we need to produce management reports to report to the senior management and also to those in charge of the programs.
The management reports must be accurate, timely, and useful. They must provide information that will increase the quality of the program, but also must identify students who we are potentially missing hours for, whether because they are not coming, or because they are not officially enrolled. The production of and follow-up on these reports can be the domain of either one person, or can be an additional responsibility of the attendance coordinator. I am leaning toward the latter, since the attendance coordinator will already be speaking with the sites on an ongoing basis in an attempt to collect and correct all the attendance.
The certification and upload might both fall under the responsibility of another person. It appears that the upload is not just as simple as downloading a file and then attaching it to the DOE database. So one person might be responsible for running the upload, and another might be responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the data. Again, the accuracy of the data might be ensured by the attendance coordinator.
That's the plan.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Planning
I sent an email today to a co-worker, who manages, among other things, our summer programs. Every year, I feel we get a late start on planning for the summer, and every year I intend to do a better job of planning ahead next time around. So, even though we haven't even been paid in the 2009 year yet at my office and even though I have dozens of other projects with a more immediate deadline than our summer programs have, I thought it would be good to get a head start on the summer, and accordingly sent an email intending to set up a meeting sometime to plan out a strategy.
He had already had a meeting scheduled to plan for the summer, scheduled, as it turns out, for today. At that meeting, he shared emails from both prospective employees and from prospective participants, each inquiring about our summer programs. Supposedly, there have been 5 such calls and emails within the last week. Instead of being ahead of the game, my email was timely, and even behind. And instead of being able to take my time planning for the implementation of a summer registration period, I had a new immediate deadline to meet to put everything in place so that we could be prepared when summer registration does in fact start.
I strongly support planning ahead, in part because I find so much of my time spent trying to catch up from behind. Playing catch up is an exhausting endeavor, because one can never be comfortable and secure in one's current position; one is always racing against time toward some barely attainable goal. The pursuit of that goal invariably requires shortcuts and adjusting on the fly to circumstances that might have been foreseen and prepared for had any thought or planning been put in.
Planning ahead, however, requires that one have the time to prepare ahead. And no matter how much time I think I have to prepare, it never seems to be enough. Similarly, no matter how foolproof I believe the plan to be, it always seems to be undermined by actual events (maybe I just need to create better plans).
In September one school year ago, a former co-worker used to always be in the office when I would arrive at 9 in the morning, and always still be there when I would leave at 6:30 or 7 at night. I asked him what he was working on so late, and he explained that his goal was to put in the extra work in the beginning of the year so he would not need to stay so late and be so stressed at the end of the year, as he had been the previous June. I decided not to remind him of the conversation the following June, when he was still the first one in and last one to leave.
The idea is that spending time upfront is an investment that can save time, energy, and money in the long run. But I wonder if the benefits of planning are only illusory. How well does the investment really pay off?
I have been distinguishing here between "no planning" which is what I am talking about, and "poor planning," where an attempt at planning is made, but proves insufficient or ineffective. But perhaps the distinction isn't useful. Both lead to the same result, and poor planning wastes more resources. So perhaps I don't need to plan. I just need to plan more effectively.
He had already had a meeting scheduled to plan for the summer, scheduled, as it turns out, for today. At that meeting, he shared emails from both prospective employees and from prospective participants, each inquiring about our summer programs. Supposedly, there have been 5 such calls and emails within the last week. Instead of being ahead of the game, my email was timely, and even behind. And instead of being able to take my time planning for the implementation of a summer registration period, I had a new immediate deadline to meet to put everything in place so that we could be prepared when summer registration does in fact start.
I strongly support planning ahead, in part because I find so much of my time spent trying to catch up from behind. Playing catch up is an exhausting endeavor, because one can never be comfortable and secure in one's current position; one is always racing against time toward some barely attainable goal. The pursuit of that goal invariably requires shortcuts and adjusting on the fly to circumstances that might have been foreseen and prepared for had any thought or planning been put in.
Planning ahead, however, requires that one have the time to prepare ahead. And no matter how much time I think I have to prepare, it never seems to be enough. Similarly, no matter how foolproof I believe the plan to be, it always seems to be undermined by actual events (maybe I just need to create better plans).
In September one school year ago, a former co-worker used to always be in the office when I would arrive at 9 in the morning, and always still be there when I would leave at 6:30 or 7 at night. I asked him what he was working on so late, and he explained that his goal was to put in the extra work in the beginning of the year so he would not need to stay so late and be so stressed at the end of the year, as he had been the previous June. I decided not to remind him of the conversation the following June, when he was still the first one in and last one to leave.
The idea is that spending time upfront is an investment that can save time, energy, and money in the long run. But I wonder if the benefits of planning are only illusory. How well does the investment really pay off?
I have been distinguishing here between "no planning" which is what I am talking about, and "poor planning," where an attempt at planning is made, but proves insufficient or ineffective. But perhaps the distinction isn't useful. Both lead to the same result, and poor planning wastes more resources. So perhaps I don't need to plan. I just need to plan more effectively.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Logic
If these writings are merely a brain dump, a place for me to unload whatever is on my mind, off the top of my head, as I think it, than my posts so far have been consistent with the intent. However, in earlier writings I have discussed goals that have involved working on my writing. This would require more work than just typing whatever comes into my mind. It would require treating writing as a craft, that needs consideration, research, and work.
After some consideration, then, here might be a better way of explaining why my missing the point of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" bothers me so much.
Let's start with the premise that any time an artist creates a work of art, including a popular film, he or she creates it to convey a message or vision of the world. Otherwise, what would be the point of the work. Okay, okay, to make money, but I think that most filmmakers do have some artistic aspirations, if not artistic integrity. In any case, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is more serious fare than a typical Hollywood blockbuster, so at least this writer and director must have had some vision or message he wanted the movie to show.
The main plot of the movie is that a man lives his life growing physically younger. Thus, one might imagine that the message has something to do with how growing younger would affect someone. Does the character live his life backward? How does he relate to those around him who are growing older? Do people treat him as an outlaw? Does he show surprising maturity for an 8-year old? Is there some wisdom that he has attained through his life that can be useful to us?
As far as I can tell, the answer to all of the above is "No." People look at him a little oddly because he is growing younger, but no one who knows him over a long period of time appears to have a problem with it, and no one else he encounters knows him long enough to be aware of his condition. No one seems to mistreat him because of it. As he ages, he doesn't appear to be any more mature than he was as a 17-year old. There is no special message that his story reveals to us about how to live our lives better. He doesn't make any profound statement on life, nor does his life suggest any statement. There's no moral. There's no lesson. Benjamin has a "curious" condition, but he doesn't appear to change, to grow, in anything other than the physical sense.
The closest part of his story that suggests some moral is the romance between Benjamin and Daisy, that provides the bulk of the plot. Since the story is told through a scrapbook in Daisy's possession, the movie might only have intended to be a love story. The drama of the movie is in how a relationship between a man growing younger and a woman growing older could even start, let alone survive. But, given that the two continue to return to each other, the message may be that "love conquers all"; not particularly original, but at least it's a message. Except that love really doesn't conquer all. The condition of Benjamin ends up causing him to end his relationship with Daisy, and when he sees her in the end, he doesn't remember her. Each of them, at one time or another, make choices to leave or reject each other. Each of them, at one time or another, make choices that lead them back to each other. Each has other lovers other than the other.
To put it another way, the distinctive characteristic of the movie is the unusual direction of Benjamin's life. But why put it in that direction unless there is something that either the character can learn from it (and through the character, us) or something dramatic that happens as a result (such as him fighting in WWII and Korea and Vietnam as he grows younger). Instead, the main character has few friends, does few things, and learns nothing.
I enjoyed the movie while I watched it, but the more I think about it afterwards, the more it frustrates me. Maybe I expect too much. But there's got to be a point. And either there wasn't, or I missed the point.
After some consideration, then, here might be a better way of explaining why my missing the point of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" bothers me so much.
Let's start with the premise that any time an artist creates a work of art, including a popular film, he or she creates it to convey a message or vision of the world. Otherwise, what would be the point of the work. Okay, okay, to make money, but I think that most filmmakers do have some artistic aspirations, if not artistic integrity. In any case, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is more serious fare than a typical Hollywood blockbuster, so at least this writer and director must have had some vision or message he wanted the movie to show.
The main plot of the movie is that a man lives his life growing physically younger. Thus, one might imagine that the message has something to do with how growing younger would affect someone. Does the character live his life backward? How does he relate to those around him who are growing older? Do people treat him as an outlaw? Does he show surprising maturity for an 8-year old? Is there some wisdom that he has attained through his life that can be useful to us?
As far as I can tell, the answer to all of the above is "No." People look at him a little oddly because he is growing younger, but no one who knows him over a long period of time appears to have a problem with it, and no one else he encounters knows him long enough to be aware of his condition. No one seems to mistreat him because of it. As he ages, he doesn't appear to be any more mature than he was as a 17-year old. There is no special message that his story reveals to us about how to live our lives better. He doesn't make any profound statement on life, nor does his life suggest any statement. There's no moral. There's no lesson. Benjamin has a "curious" condition, but he doesn't appear to change, to grow, in anything other than the physical sense.
The closest part of his story that suggests some moral is the romance between Benjamin and Daisy, that provides the bulk of the plot. Since the story is told through a scrapbook in Daisy's possession, the movie might only have intended to be a love story. The drama of the movie is in how a relationship between a man growing younger and a woman growing older could even start, let alone survive. But, given that the two continue to return to each other, the message may be that "love conquers all"; not particularly original, but at least it's a message. Except that love really doesn't conquer all. The condition of Benjamin ends up causing him to end his relationship with Daisy, and when he sees her in the end, he doesn't remember her. Each of them, at one time or another, make choices to leave or reject each other. Each of them, at one time or another, make choices that lead them back to each other. Each has other lovers other than the other.
To put it another way, the distinctive characteristic of the movie is the unusual direction of Benjamin's life. But why put it in that direction unless there is something that either the character can learn from it (and through the character, us) or something dramatic that happens as a result (such as him fighting in WWII and Korea and Vietnam as he grows younger). Instead, the main character has few friends, does few things, and learns nothing.
I enjoyed the movie while I watched it, but the more I think about it afterwards, the more it frustrates me. Maybe I expect too much. But there's got to be a point. And either there wasn't, or I missed the point.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Missing the Point
Have you ever read a book, cover to cover, and upon reaching the end, you have the urge to flip back a few pages or chapters to see what you missed? Because you know that there must have been a key phrase or scene in there somewhere that would have unlocked the whole mystery of the book to you, so that you got whatever it was that the author intended.
Or perhaps you watched a movie, and it's interesting, and the acting is good, and the plot moves along, and then it ends and you think "That's it? Did I miss something? What was the point of that?"
I ask because I find I often feel that way. At the very least, I've felt that way about a few stories I've recently read and the movie I've most recently seen.
My spouse and I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on Thursday night and it was everything I said above, interesting story, good acting, nice film-making, decent plot. But something, somewhere was missing from it for me. Or at any rate, I felt I had missed something. What was the movie intending to show? Was it simply an unconventional love story? How two people so different kept coming back to each other again and again? Was there some symbolism I was missing (in the clock, the hummingbird, the postcards, the very virtue of Benjamin's curious case), did they all represent something? Was there some deeper meaning that I couldn't fathom? And if not, shouldn't there have been?
I suppose the best case can be made for it being simply a love story, how fate caused two people to fall together again, even in the most difficult of circumstances. But of course, fate didn't cause them to continue to impact each others lives; they made conscious or semi-conscious choices to return to each other, and to accept each other, time and again. They also made conscious or semi-conscious choices to abandon each other, even though they loved one another. It was romantic, in a way, because they eventually reunited, but the bulk of the story, they weren't really together. And, frankly, for the bulk of the story, the title character didn't do anything. Anything at all. Nor, as far as I could tell, did he learn anything. Nor did he seem to grow older mentally and emotionally even as he grew younger physically. Again, not that he had to change or learn or grow. But if the point was to tell a story about how a man lived his life growing younger, wouldn't you think there would have been some moral that we could have derived from that? I didn't see a moral. But then, maybe I just missed it.
Similarly, I recently read a novel that my spouse took out of the library for me. It is called The Cello Player and since I had played the cello as a child, it seemed like it might be of interest to me. It is a German novel by Nicholas Kruger, translated into English, about a German composer. According to the front flap, it is about his relationship with a woman, a cellist (and why call it The Cello Player as opposed to The Cellist? Isn't "cellist" a much more convenient way to translate "cello player." I mean, isn't that why the word "cellist" exists, so we don't need to go around calling people "cello players.") But I've got to tell you, the relationship, such as it was, was so . . . I don't want to say it was a minor part of the book, because of course it wasn't. But it always seemed to be tangential to the point of the book. The composer, who told the story first-person, always seemed to be focusing on something else, other than the cellist. And yet from the descriptions on the inside jacket cover, it made her out to be some treacherous vixen. I didn't see it. I still don't see it. It makes me want to read a review of it, so that I can see what I missed. Or the Cliffsnotes, if they exist. Which they don't, because frankly the book is not really good enough for Cliffsnotes to exist. Maybe a review. Or something that would explicate it.
I don't mean to put these artistic works down, either, by suggesting that they don't have a point. My sister-in-law, who is an artist by training, recently said that she thinks if the artist can convey his point without having to explain, than the work is "good" art, whereas works which fail to make their point to the viewer without needing a paragraph of explication are less successful. I'm not in complete agreement with her on that; I think that aesthetic beauty should count for something in addition to the "point" that the artist is trying to make, whether he or she be a painter, composer, dancer, sculptor or writer. And I have read some very good books lately where I missed the point completely until I read the introduction or end notes where it was explained in clear English to me (Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury stands out as an example of a story where I had no idea what I was reading until I received the guidance of the Epilogue).
Here's the thing: I'm a relatively intelligent man. I should be able to figure out what the artist is trying to do, right? And, if he or she does it well, it should reveal a whole new world, a whole way of looking at things, right? At some level, that is the purpose of art. So my failure to get the point ends up being a failure to understand something new about the world, a failure to have my eyes opened in a new way, a failure to be exposed to new thoughts or to encounter old thoughts from a different perspective.
So what's my point? I'll spare you the flippant "I dunno." My point on the most basic level is, I wish I had the ability to grasp exactly what the artist intended with every work of art. But sometimes, I have to think that it is not my failing that prevents me from grasping an artist's intent, that it is the artist's failing as well. And when the artist fails, two things happen. One, people still look for meaning, for a message in the work of art, sometimes stretching themselves beyond the point of credibility to give a sense of meaning to the work, over-analyzing and over-interpreting. And two, the actual meaning, the message that the artist intended to convey to audiences that caused him or her to start the work of art in the first place, tends to be covered up by the attempted analysis of the critics. Perhaps my sister-in-law is right, that the best art should require no critics at all, because the message will be so clear that each of us will understand it without need of explication.
Or perhaps you watched a movie, and it's interesting, and the acting is good, and the plot moves along, and then it ends and you think "That's it? Did I miss something? What was the point of that?"
I ask because I find I often feel that way. At the very least, I've felt that way about a few stories I've recently read and the movie I've most recently seen.
My spouse and I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on Thursday night and it was everything I said above, interesting story, good acting, nice film-making, decent plot. But something, somewhere was missing from it for me. Or at any rate, I felt I had missed something. What was the movie intending to show? Was it simply an unconventional love story? How two people so different kept coming back to each other again and again? Was there some symbolism I was missing (in the clock, the hummingbird, the postcards, the very virtue of Benjamin's curious case), did they all represent something? Was there some deeper meaning that I couldn't fathom? And if not, shouldn't there have been?
I suppose the best case can be made for it being simply a love story, how fate caused two people to fall together again, even in the most difficult of circumstances. But of course, fate didn't cause them to continue to impact each others lives; they made conscious or semi-conscious choices to return to each other, and to accept each other, time and again. They also made conscious or semi-conscious choices to abandon each other, even though they loved one another. It was romantic, in a way, because they eventually reunited, but the bulk of the story, they weren't really together. And, frankly, for the bulk of the story, the title character didn't do anything. Anything at all. Nor, as far as I could tell, did he learn anything. Nor did he seem to grow older mentally and emotionally even as he grew younger physically. Again, not that he had to change or learn or grow. But if the point was to tell a story about how a man lived his life growing younger, wouldn't you think there would have been some moral that we could have derived from that? I didn't see a moral. But then, maybe I just missed it.
Similarly, I recently read a novel that my spouse took out of the library for me. It is called The Cello Player and since I had played the cello as a child, it seemed like it might be of interest to me. It is a German novel by Nicholas Kruger, translated into English, about a German composer. According to the front flap, it is about his relationship with a woman, a cellist (and why call it The Cello Player as opposed to The Cellist? Isn't "cellist" a much more convenient way to translate "cello player." I mean, isn't that why the word "cellist" exists, so we don't need to go around calling people "cello players.") But I've got to tell you, the relationship, such as it was, was so . . . I don't want to say it was a minor part of the book, because of course it wasn't. But it always seemed to be tangential to the point of the book. The composer, who told the story first-person, always seemed to be focusing on something else, other than the cellist. And yet from the descriptions on the inside jacket cover, it made her out to be some treacherous vixen. I didn't see it. I still don't see it. It makes me want to read a review of it, so that I can see what I missed. Or the Cliffsnotes, if they exist. Which they don't, because frankly the book is not really good enough for Cliffsnotes to exist. Maybe a review. Or something that would explicate it.
I don't mean to put these artistic works down, either, by suggesting that they don't have a point. My sister-in-law, who is an artist by training, recently said that she thinks if the artist can convey his point without having to explain, than the work is "good" art, whereas works which fail to make their point to the viewer without needing a paragraph of explication are less successful. I'm not in complete agreement with her on that; I think that aesthetic beauty should count for something in addition to the "point" that the artist is trying to make, whether he or she be a painter, composer, dancer, sculptor or writer. And I have read some very good books lately where I missed the point completely until I read the introduction or end notes where it was explained in clear English to me (Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury stands out as an example of a story where I had no idea what I was reading until I received the guidance of the Epilogue).
Here's the thing: I'm a relatively intelligent man. I should be able to figure out what the artist is trying to do, right? And, if he or she does it well, it should reveal a whole new world, a whole way of looking at things, right? At some level, that is the purpose of art. So my failure to get the point ends up being a failure to understand something new about the world, a failure to have my eyes opened in a new way, a failure to be exposed to new thoughts or to encounter old thoughts from a different perspective.
So what's my point? I'll spare you the flippant "I dunno." My point on the most basic level is, I wish I had the ability to grasp exactly what the artist intended with every work of art. But sometimes, I have to think that it is not my failing that prevents me from grasping an artist's intent, that it is the artist's failing as well. And when the artist fails, two things happen. One, people still look for meaning, for a message in the work of art, sometimes stretching themselves beyond the point of credibility to give a sense of meaning to the work, over-analyzing and over-interpreting. And two, the actual meaning, the message that the artist intended to convey to audiences that caused him or her to start the work of art in the first place, tends to be covered up by the attempted analysis of the critics. Perhaps my sister-in-law is right, that the best art should require no critics at all, because the message will be so clear that each of us will understand it without need of explication.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Red Hot Stove
My father's friend Mark is going to Boston this weekend to attend the Annual Hot Stove meeting that the Red Sox host. This year, the meeting will feature Theo Epstein, Terry Francona, defending AL MVP Dustin Pedroia, and Peter Gammons (my father's email also said it would feature CC Sabathia, but that had to be an error, right? The guy just signed for over a hundred million dollars with the Yankees; I hardly think he's showing up in Boston for some Red Sox-organizing Hot Stove talk). My dad asked (because Mark asked) what questions I might suggest that Mark ask of the assembled stars of Red Sox Nation. So I proposed a few questions, but quickly realized that I could probably answer them (the questions I proposed and their hypothetical answers are below). If I can answer the questions, then what's the point of asking them? So now I'm asking you; if you could ask Theo a question, what would it be?
Here are my questions and answer -
"Will John Henry's recent stock market troubles (his net worth is estimated to be down to $860 million) cause Epstein to be more budget-sensitive and restrained in spending than he has in the past? What are they going to do about the catching situation, hope that Tek comes back at a discount, or is Bard really considered the solution? And I just read that Baldelli and Smoltz are close to signing; what are the expectations for these two very talented but injury-prone players? Is Baldelli going to take on the Coco Crisp role, or will he fight Ellsbury for the starting job? And is Smoltz expected to start or be used in the pen (once he's ready in June - I guess it's really too early to tell)?
Will Clay Buchholz and Justin Masterson get a chance to start coming out in Spring Training? Or will they be reserved for pen roles until they prove their ability to succeed on the Major League stage? And what other minor leaguers might step into a role with the Sox this year, the way Lowrie and Masterson did last year and Pedroia and Ellsbury the year before?
Now, for the answers:
A) "Clearly, in these rocky economic times, everyone is feeling the pinch, and we are no exception. However, we have always been careful to spend within our means, and we will still make every effort to put the Championship-caliber team on the field that Red Sox Nation expects and deserves, without burdening ourselves with overpriced free agents who will not fit in with the chemistry on the team. That's why we've been focusing so much on developing from within and then paying to lock up guys like Dustin here, who have come up with us and have proven their mettle in Boston."
B) "Obviously, we loved Tek and what he did for us, both on the field and in the clubhouse. We've been in talks with him consistently, and have told him we'd love to have him back, but we've made what we feel is a fair offer and right now the ball is in his court. In the meantime, we've signed Josh Bard, who is an experienced player who had some very successful seasons catching full-time in San Diego. We feel comfortable with Bard as the main starter, but we are definitely looking to add depth to the catching position on our roster."
C) "With Baldelli, he's someone we've had our eye on for a long time; he's obviously a local kid, and very very talented, and we're thrilled to be able to add him to our team. He certainly has the talent to start every day, and in the past few years if we have had an outfielder or two get injured, we've needed some depth at the position, which Baldelli certainly gives us."
D) "As for Smoltz, he's a great competitor, a future Hall-of-Famer, and we know the kind of leadership and talent he brings to the club. He's still rehabbing from his surgery, but our doctor's have examined him, and we think he's on course to be back with the team by June. That's still a long way away, of course, and we'll see how things progress, taking things one day at a time."
E) "Buchholz and Masterson are guys like I was talking about earlier, young players we've developed, who we want to bring along to help the Red Sox continue to succeed for the next decade. While they've both shown great potential, you never want to push them too hard and rush them, so while we expect both to be excellent starters in the long-term, for this season we will probably start them in the pen."
Now, if I already know the answers, then why ask the questions? Because maybe Theo will surprise me, I guess. Anyway, I think you told me once that lawyers learn never to ask questions they don't know the answer to."
I also just thought of one more question to ask Theo:
Do you ever reflect on your decisions and evaluate your personal successes and failures to make better decisions in the future? If so, what sort of adjustments have you made as a GM to improve the chances of success that the Red Sox have, based on those evaluations?
Here are my questions and answer -
"Will John Henry's recent stock market troubles (his net worth is estimated to be down to $860 million) cause Epstein to be more budget-sensitive and restrained in spending than he has in the past? What are they going to do about the catching situation, hope that Tek comes back at a discount, or is Bard really considered the solution? And I just read that Baldelli and Smoltz are close to signing; what are the expectations for these two very talented but injury-prone players? Is Baldelli going to take on the Coco Crisp role, or will he fight Ellsbury for the starting job? And is Smoltz expected to start or be used in the pen (once he's ready in June - I guess it's really too early to tell)?
Will Clay Buchholz and Justin Masterson get a chance to start coming out in Spring Training? Or will they be reserved for pen roles until they prove their ability to succeed on the Major League stage? And what other minor leaguers might step into a role with the Sox this year, the way Lowrie and Masterson did last year and Pedroia and Ellsbury the year before?
Now, for the answers:
A) "Clearly, in these rocky economic times, everyone is feeling the pinch, and we are no exception. However, we have always been careful to spend within our means, and we will still make every effort to put the Championship-caliber team on the field that Red Sox Nation expects and deserves, without burdening ourselves with overpriced free agents who will not fit in with the chemistry on the team. That's why we've been focusing so much on developing from within and then paying to lock up guys like Dustin here, who have come up with us and have proven their mettle in Boston."
B) "Obviously, we loved Tek and what he did for us, both on the field and in the clubhouse. We've been in talks with him consistently, and have told him we'd love to have him back, but we've made what we feel is a fair offer and right now the ball is in his court. In the meantime, we've signed Josh Bard, who is an experienced player who had some very successful seasons catching full-time in San Diego. We feel comfortable with Bard as the main starter, but we are definitely looking to add depth to the catching position on our roster."
C) "With Baldelli, he's someone we've had our eye on for a long time; he's obviously a local kid, and very very talented, and we're thrilled to be able to add him to our team. He certainly has the talent to start every day, and in the past few years if we have had an outfielder or two get injured, we've needed some depth at the position, which Baldelli certainly gives us."
D) "As for Smoltz, he's a great competitor, a future Hall-of-Famer, and we know the kind of leadership and talent he brings to the club. He's still rehabbing from his surgery, but our doctor's have examined him, and we think he's on course to be back with the team by June. That's still a long way away, of course, and we'll see how things progress, taking things one day at a time."
E) "Buchholz and Masterson are guys like I was talking about earlier, young players we've developed, who we want to bring along to help the Red Sox continue to succeed for the next decade. While they've both shown great potential, you never want to push them too hard and rush them, so while we expect both to be excellent starters in the long-term, for this season we will probably start them in the pen."
Now, if I already know the answers, then why ask the questions? Because maybe Theo will surprise me, I guess. Anyway, I think you told me once that lawyers learn never to ask questions they don't know the answer to."
I also just thought of one more question to ask Theo:
Do you ever reflect on your decisions and evaluate your personal successes and failures to make better decisions in the future? If so, what sort of adjustments have you made as a GM to improve the chances of success that the Red Sox have, based on those evaluations?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Purpose
I have not, to this point, shared the URL or web address, or mentioned the existence of these writings to anyone other than my spouse. I suppose that normally when one creates a website, one seeks to encourage as many people to read it as possible, and therefore one invites all one's friends to see the page, posts links to it on other people's sites, and basically promotes the hell out of it until it establishes a regular and consistent readership.
Granted, I am only a week in, but I have not done any of these things yet, and frankly at this point, do not expect to. Which begs the question, why not? Why write if I have no intention for anyone to read? Is this the equivalent of a typed diary? If so, why post it on the Internet? Do I hope that people are going to simply stumble across this page and be so entranced with my incredible writing skills that they will bookmark it and come back day after day? If so, where did I get such an arrogant and at the same time naive idea?
Part of the answer as to why I have not publicized this page comes from yesterday's post (the one directly below this one), which is that if I publicized the page to my friends, that would really take away the anonymity of it. It's hard to maintain a pretense of anonymity and then tell your parents that you are writing a website. "Oh Mom, Dad, let me tell you about this great website I 'found,' here's the address, and oh yes, the author does seem to superficially resemble me, but pay no mind to that."
Also, by inviting people to read my website, I would be presuming their interest in my life or at least in my thoughts (since so far this website deals very little with my actual life, but deals a great amount with the meta-level discussion of what I want these writings to be). At this point, I cannot claim that there is much on this site that is of any interest to anyone, other than myself.
Extending that thought a little bit, there is as yet no subject that these writings are devoted to, that would make it easy for me to send a link and say "here's a new blog about ______," filling in the blank with whatever subject is my area of expertise or interest. For one thing, my areas of interest are relatively broad, while my areas of expertise are either non-existent or uninteresting. I am greatly interested in baseball, for example, and the few blogs I frequent tend to be baseball-related. However, as an interested outsider, I do not see where I can really contribute any more than the already extant blogs by interested outsiders. Perhaps I might have ideas here and there that merit publishing, and if so they will certainly appear in this space, but I do not see myself having original content for 365 days of writing about baseball, at least, not writing that would add anything to the plethora of writing that already exists on the subject.
On the other hand, the ins and outs of my job, which I know quite well, are so specific that I doubt anyone other than a handful of people out there really care. I care, quite a bit, so I expect several days will consist of me writing about my work, but again, it isn't exactly a subject that people are rushing to read blogs about.
Which brings us to another point: I have to this point studiously avoided calling this website a blog, referring to it variously as a website or as my writings, depending on what the context called for. I have even gone so far as to title the website "Ce n'est pas un blog," a reference to the Rene Magritte painting "Ce n'est pas un pipe" or "This is not a pipe." The painting was of a pipe, but as Magritte was so cleverly and accurately pointing out, the painting was not in fact a pipe, but was instead a painting, a representation of a pipe.
I am not nearly so clever or so accurate. For one thing, I have established these writings on blogger, which would seem to qualify it as a blog, my title notwithstanding. For another, what constitutes a blog is so ill-defined and so flexible that any informal series of web postings would seem to meet the criteria, and my writings so far are certainly an informal series of web postings. Furthermore, unlike many in the more mainstream media who seem to scoff at the concept of "bloggers," I have no qualms with blogs or bloggers. I frequent a few blogs, namely:
http://www.aarongleeman.com
http://joeposnanski.com/joeblog
http://www.ranyontheroyals.com
http://www.bucsdugout.com
Like I said, they are almost entirely baseball sites. I have no problem reading them and the amount and quality of content at those blogs exceeds much of what is in the mainstream press (or at least, much of what is in the lowest-common-denominator mainstream press, the MLB.com, AOL.com, equivalent. Slate.com, though not a blog and definitely mainstream, has very high quality work (although to be honest, I haven't read any articles there since September, and the blogs on the site were less interesting than the journalism on the site).
Successful blogs seem to have at least one or two things going for them. They are either devoted to a singular specific subject that also interests a number of other people, or the life of the person writing them is of sufficient interest that people will tune in voyeuristically to read of it. One of those two things, and high-quality writing of course.
At a Ben Folds performance at the Beacon Theater a few years ago, Ben (introducing "Army") described his songwriting process as the "American" style of songwriting - take something that has happened to you, write it down, and put it to music. This is typical not just of American songwriting, but of American blog-writing. Here's something that happened to me. Here's something I believe. Here are pictures I took. Put it out on the Internet and invite people to read it.
This type of process requires that the writer have a very high opinion of the interest of his or her life. Think of the self-consciousness that such writing requires, and the self-centeredness that those writers possess, believing that their lives merit an audience. I, too, used to be so self-centered. When I was in middle school, 6th or 7th grade, I used to wish that a video-camera could be placed in my eyes, to see what I saw, while a narrator read the thoughts that flew through my mind. At the time, I believed that it would be so interesting, dramatic, epic even. Those thoughts were the same type of thoughts that inspire people to appear on reality TV shows, I'm sure. And undoubtedly, the same thoughts have inspired many blogs.
I no longer feel that way about myself. Reality television has ruined it, perhaps, or perhaps as I have aged, my life seems much less interesting. Perhaps it is less interesting. Certainly when I was 13, I imagined I would do much more exciting things than I heretofore have. In any case, that exhibitionist, self-aggrandizing quality is not, I don't believe, the underlying reason for me beginning these writings. And for this, and other reasons, I am choosing not to think of this as a blog, even though, as I suggested earlier, it undoubtedly qualifies as such.
But all of the above stills says little about the purported purpose of these writings, and of posting them on a website.
I am writing this not to entertain my friends, not to inform or impress some random readers on any particular subject. I am writing this for me, and for me alone. I am writing because, as I said in my first post, I need to write and more specifically, need to think. While I may no longer believe that my life is a fitting subject for an epic, I apparently still think my thoughts are worthy of further inspection. But thoughts run through ones mind faster than anyone can grasp them, and it takes putting them on paper, exposing them to the light of day, to really examine them, to really elucidate them, further them.
So these writings are for my benefit. If anyone else enjoys them, benefits from them; if you enjoy or benefit from them, then good for you; good for them.
Granted, I am only a week in, but I have not done any of these things yet, and frankly at this point, do not expect to. Which begs the question, why not? Why write if I have no intention for anyone to read? Is this the equivalent of a typed diary? If so, why post it on the Internet? Do I hope that people are going to simply stumble across this page and be so entranced with my incredible writing skills that they will bookmark it and come back day after day? If so, where did I get such an arrogant and at the same time naive idea?
Part of the answer as to why I have not publicized this page comes from yesterday's post (the one directly below this one), which is that if I publicized the page to my friends, that would really take away the anonymity of it. It's hard to maintain a pretense of anonymity and then tell your parents that you are writing a website. "Oh Mom, Dad, let me tell you about this great website I 'found,' here's the address, and oh yes, the author does seem to superficially resemble me, but pay no mind to that."
Also, by inviting people to read my website, I would be presuming their interest in my life or at least in my thoughts (since so far this website deals very little with my actual life, but deals a great amount with the meta-level discussion of what I want these writings to be). At this point, I cannot claim that there is much on this site that is of any interest to anyone, other than myself.
Extending that thought a little bit, there is as yet no subject that these writings are devoted to, that would make it easy for me to send a link and say "here's a new blog about ______," filling in the blank with whatever subject is my area of expertise or interest. For one thing, my areas of interest are relatively broad, while my areas of expertise are either non-existent or uninteresting. I am greatly interested in baseball, for example, and the few blogs I frequent tend to be baseball-related. However, as an interested outsider, I do not see where I can really contribute any more than the already extant blogs by interested outsiders. Perhaps I might have ideas here and there that merit publishing, and if so they will certainly appear in this space, but I do not see myself having original content for 365 days of writing about baseball, at least, not writing that would add anything to the plethora of writing that already exists on the subject.
On the other hand, the ins and outs of my job, which I know quite well, are so specific that I doubt anyone other than a handful of people out there really care. I care, quite a bit, so I expect several days will consist of me writing about my work, but again, it isn't exactly a subject that people are rushing to read blogs about.
Which brings us to another point: I have to this point studiously avoided calling this website a blog, referring to it variously as a website or as my writings, depending on what the context called for. I have even gone so far as to title the website "Ce n'est pas un blog," a reference to the Rene Magritte painting "Ce n'est pas un pipe" or "This is not a pipe." The painting was of a pipe, but as Magritte was so cleverly and accurately pointing out, the painting was not in fact a pipe, but was instead a painting, a representation of a pipe.
I am not nearly so clever or so accurate. For one thing, I have established these writings on blogger, which would seem to qualify it as a blog, my title notwithstanding. For another, what constitutes a blog is so ill-defined and so flexible that any informal series of web postings would seem to meet the criteria, and my writings so far are certainly an informal series of web postings. Furthermore, unlike many in the more mainstream media who seem to scoff at the concept of "bloggers," I have no qualms with blogs or bloggers. I frequent a few blogs, namely:
http://www.aarongleeman.com
http://joeposnanski.com/joeblog
http://www.ranyontheroyals.com
http://www.bucsdugout.com
Like I said, they are almost entirely baseball sites. I have no problem reading them and the amount and quality of content at those blogs exceeds much of what is in the mainstream press (or at least, much of what is in the lowest-common-denominator mainstream press, the MLB.com, AOL.com, equivalent. Slate.com, though not a blog and definitely mainstream, has very high quality work (although to be honest, I haven't read any articles there since September, and the blogs on the site were less interesting than the journalism on the site).
Successful blogs seem to have at least one or two things going for them. They are either devoted to a singular specific subject that also interests a number of other people, or the life of the person writing them is of sufficient interest that people will tune in voyeuristically to read of it. One of those two things, and high-quality writing of course.
At a Ben Folds performance at the Beacon Theater a few years ago, Ben (introducing "Army") described his songwriting process as the "American" style of songwriting - take something that has happened to you, write it down, and put it to music. This is typical not just of American songwriting, but of American blog-writing. Here's something that happened to me. Here's something I believe. Here are pictures I took. Put it out on the Internet and invite people to read it.
This type of process requires that the writer have a very high opinion of the interest of his or her life. Think of the self-consciousness that such writing requires, and the self-centeredness that those writers possess, believing that their lives merit an audience. I, too, used to be so self-centered. When I was in middle school, 6th or 7th grade, I used to wish that a video-camera could be placed in my eyes, to see what I saw, while a narrator read the thoughts that flew through my mind. At the time, I believed that it would be so interesting, dramatic, epic even. Those thoughts were the same type of thoughts that inspire people to appear on reality TV shows, I'm sure. And undoubtedly, the same thoughts have inspired many blogs.
I no longer feel that way about myself. Reality television has ruined it, perhaps, or perhaps as I have aged, my life seems much less interesting. Perhaps it is less interesting. Certainly when I was 13, I imagined I would do much more exciting things than I heretofore have. In any case, that exhibitionist, self-aggrandizing quality is not, I don't believe, the underlying reason for me beginning these writings. And for this, and other reasons, I am choosing not to think of this as a blog, even though, as I suggested earlier, it undoubtedly qualifies as such.
But all of the above stills says little about the purported purpose of these writings, and of posting them on a website.
I am writing this not to entertain my friends, not to inform or impress some random readers on any particular subject. I am writing this for me, and for me alone. I am writing because, as I said in my first post, I need to write and more specifically, need to think. While I may no longer believe that my life is a fitting subject for an epic, I apparently still think my thoughts are worthy of further inspection. But thoughts run through ones mind faster than anyone can grasp them, and it takes putting them on paper, exposing them to the light of day, to really examine them, to really elucidate them, further them.
So these writings are for my benefit. If anyone else enjoys them, benefits from them; if you enjoy or benefit from them, then good for you; good for them.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Anonymity
J Hench is my real name. Actually, my real name is Jayson, but since my parents chose to spell it oddly, (or, as they probably thought, uniquely) I ended up being called "Jay" by teachers, friends, friends' parents, frequently enough that that abbreviation of my given name stuck. I, in typically clever pseudo-phonetic internet-ese have abbreviated the name further, to simply "J". Period outside the quotes, because, as you'll note, there is no period after the J, as though J did not actually stand for anything, but was simply my given name (though it does in fact stand for something, as noted above). Also, leaving the J without the first name will in theory (though perhaps not in fact) make it more difficult for anyone who stumbles across this page to Google me and discover those unfortunate pictures of me taken at the office party, or my credit card number, or the fact that I am Client No. 8 (one better than the former governor). Or whatever other goodies we are supposed to be afraid will undermine us if we reveal our identity online.
Or perhaps J Hench is an alias, a clever disguise, meant to hide my true identity. In fact, it may refer to the fact that I am some sort of Hench-man for some nefarious plot that is certain to destroy Western Civilization as we know it, starting with the Internet and eventually taking over television, radio, satellites, and the bureaucracy. This is merely a front, a mask that I wear.
Due to the very anonymity of the Internet, a sort of self-regulation has developed. Anyone posting online could be . . . well, anyone. I could create a new username and post critical comments, hoping to start a controversial flamewar that would draw attention to this website. My daughter could be typing this right now as I dictate to her (or my husband as I dictate to him, or Superman, as I keep him in his chair in front of my computer by surrounding it with Krypton). Since anyone could be anyone, it is important for everyone to establish some credibility, and the easiest way to do that is to be open and honest about who one is, what one does, where one lives, who is in ones family, the openess and honesty lending a credibility to each internet alias' existence, lending it a grounding in a reality other than the virtual kind.
On the otherhand, that very openess and honesty leads to the risk of being victimized, taken advantage of by ne'er-do-wells. Or it could result in offending those whom one is close to and chose to integrate into ones narrative. Or it could result in being exposed as a hypocrite, atheist, liberal, philandering, commie-pinko-bedwetter, and unpatriotic to boot. Or as a partier who likes to dress up as a fairy when he has called in sick to work.
So, what to do, what to do? If I chose to write as myself, under my real name, about the real people in my life, there is a lot of risk of potential damage to my real life. On the other hand, choosing to remain anonymous on the Internet, while being better for my non-virtual existence, potentially undermines anything I say on this website or any other. The solution I have developed for the present is to devise a transparent alter ego that will be my moniker for all my posts here until I come up with a better one. I may post about real people and about my real life, but I may disguise it so as to be unrecognizable. On the other hand, I may use the real names and places, and hope that you will be unable to tell which is which (and hope that the real people whom I might be making offensive comments about do not end up reading this). In short, I cannot guarantee that what you read here will be a fair and accurate, non-fictitious portrayal of reality (or even my reality), nor can I claim that everything will be a fiction, a story, or falsehood. I myself am not yet sure which route I will take in my writings.
The obvious questions that have arisen in my mind, but are as yet unspoken and therefore unanswered is, what is the purpose of these writings? Who are they for? What do I hope to gain from them? These are important questions, that need to be pursued, but alas, my thirty minutes are up, and my spouse is getting tired of reading David Foster Wallace while waiting for me to finish typing. Adieu until tomorrow.
Or perhaps J Hench is an alias, a clever disguise, meant to hide my true identity. In fact, it may refer to the fact that I am some sort of Hench-man for some nefarious plot that is certain to destroy Western Civilization as we know it, starting with the Internet and eventually taking over television, radio, satellites, and the bureaucracy. This is merely a front, a mask that I wear.
Due to the very anonymity of the Internet, a sort of self-regulation has developed. Anyone posting online could be . . . well, anyone. I could create a new username and post critical comments, hoping to start a controversial flamewar that would draw attention to this website. My daughter could be typing this right now as I dictate to her (or my husband as I dictate to him, or Superman, as I keep him in his chair in front of my computer by surrounding it with Krypton). Since anyone could be anyone, it is important for everyone to establish some credibility, and the easiest way to do that is to be open and honest about who one is, what one does, where one lives, who is in ones family, the openess and honesty lending a credibility to each internet alias' existence, lending it a grounding in a reality other than the virtual kind.
On the otherhand, that very openess and honesty leads to the risk of being victimized, taken advantage of by ne'er-do-wells. Or it could result in offending those whom one is close to and chose to integrate into ones narrative. Or it could result in being exposed as a hypocrite, atheist, liberal, philandering, commie-pinko-bedwetter, and unpatriotic to boot. Or as a partier who likes to dress up as a fairy when he has called in sick to work.
So, what to do, what to do? If I chose to write as myself, under my real name, about the real people in my life, there is a lot of risk of potential damage to my real life. On the other hand, choosing to remain anonymous on the Internet, while being better for my non-virtual existence, potentially undermines anything I say on this website or any other. The solution I have developed for the present is to devise a transparent alter ego that will be my moniker for all my posts here until I come up with a better one. I may post about real people and about my real life, but I may disguise it so as to be unrecognizable. On the other hand, I may use the real names and places, and hope that you will be unable to tell which is which (and hope that the real people whom I might be making offensive comments about do not end up reading this). In short, I cannot guarantee that what you read here will be a fair and accurate, non-fictitious portrayal of reality (or even my reality), nor can I claim that everything will be a fiction, a story, or falsehood. I myself am not yet sure which route I will take in my writings.
The obvious questions that have arisen in my mind, but are as yet unspoken and therefore unanswered is, what is the purpose of these writings? Who are they for? What do I hope to gain from them? These are important questions, that need to be pursued, but alas, my thirty minutes are up, and my spouse is getting tired of reading David Foster Wallace while waiting for me to finish typing. Adieu until tomorrow.
Discipline II
So much for discipline . . . After spending my 30 minutes in Day 1, I spent zero minutes in Day 2. Perhaps Day 3 will be better.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Discipline
I've decided. I need to create. I have too many pipe dreams; too many projects left undone (or, more likely, unstarted); too many ideas left unexpressed. They will all stay that way until I do something about them. So I am going to do something. If you want to consider it a New Year's Resolution, that's one way of looking at it. To me, it is just a question of setting time aside. Establishing a routine. If not now, when?
So here is the plan. I will devote 30 minutes a day to writing/working on this page. I'm not going to unequivocally state that it will not be more than 30 minutes a day. I tend to write a lot (when I write). It ideally will never be less than 30 minutes a day. That way, I will get my writing practice in.
Practice? Yes, part of the idea of this is that if I do not write, then nothing will come of it. One cannot be a writer if one never writes. Does this mean that I aim to be a writer? Yes, I suppose on some level it does. What kind of writing? I don't know for certain. But any writing practice at all will help me recover whatever writing skills I may once have had.
What will I write about here? Anything that comes to mind. Some thing, every day. At least then I'll be providing regular content. I expect that it will be a hodge podge of thoughts about things that interest me. I may end up focusing on one area. I may not. We'll see where it goes.
As part of the writing practice, I may also revise or add on to previous posts. My father once told me a story, as we were driving to my cousin's house in Vermont, about a poet who was staying at an artist's colony we passed on the way. The poet had come out of his room for afternoon tea after having spent hours working in his room, when a young poet staying at the same place approached him, full of enthusiasm.
"I've completed 15 pages of my epic this morning," said the young poet, flush with excitement. "What have you done?"
"I," replied the stern older poet, "have put a hyphen between the words 'fox' and 'trot.' Then, I removed it."
I, too, may spend my thirty minutes editing my posts, reconsidering them, re-writing them. When I do, I will keep the original post up, but will re-post the edited version as a new post, so you can see the work in progress. Not that you'd want to. But, at this point, this website has no audience. It is a website for me, therefore, not for the reader. At some point that may change, and then I am sure that I will change. But until then, I get to be selfish and do things my way.
Until tomorrow. . .
So here is the plan. I will devote 30 minutes a day to writing/working on this page. I'm not going to unequivocally state that it will not be more than 30 minutes a day. I tend to write a lot (when I write). It ideally will never be less than 30 minutes a day. That way, I will get my writing practice in.
Practice? Yes, part of the idea of this is that if I do not write, then nothing will come of it. One cannot be a writer if one never writes. Does this mean that I aim to be a writer? Yes, I suppose on some level it does. What kind of writing? I don't know for certain. But any writing practice at all will help me recover whatever writing skills I may once have had.
What will I write about here? Anything that comes to mind. Some thing, every day. At least then I'll be providing regular content. I expect that it will be a hodge podge of thoughts about things that interest me. I may end up focusing on one area. I may not. We'll see where it goes.
As part of the writing practice, I may also revise or add on to previous posts. My father once told me a story, as we were driving to my cousin's house in Vermont, about a poet who was staying at an artist's colony we passed on the way. The poet had come out of his room for afternoon tea after having spent hours working in his room, when a young poet staying at the same place approached him, full of enthusiasm.
"I've completed 15 pages of my epic this morning," said the young poet, flush with excitement. "What have you done?"
"I," replied the stern older poet, "have put a hyphen between the words 'fox' and 'trot.' Then, I removed it."
I, too, may spend my thirty minutes editing my posts, reconsidering them, re-writing them. When I do, I will keep the original post up, but will re-post the edited version as a new post, so you can see the work in progress. Not that you'd want to. But, at this point, this website has no audience. It is a website for me, therefore, not for the reader. At some point that may change, and then I am sure that I will change. But until then, I get to be selfish and do things my way.
Until tomorrow. . .
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